Making the most of some sun

Thursday was forecast to be a sunny day further inland including in the mountains at Sulitjelma. I had to make the most of the day as the ongoing forecast is a bit uncertain and I may not get another chance for some good buttering.

I chose Sulis instead of Graddis in Junkerdalen because Sulis is 40 minutes less driving and has had far less historical coverage so the chance of finding something new is much higher (I dream of discovering new sites for Dusky-winged Fritillary (dvergperlemorvinge) and Arctic Grayling (tundraringvinge)). I awoke at 0430 with the disappointment of the previous night’s footy game fresh in my mind but felt energetic and excited with what the morning would bring.

On the way I stopped at Klungset to do some birding. As I noted last year something serious has happened here and numbers of Velvet Scoter are a fraction of what they used to be and I counted fewer than 100 in the whole area. A very distant male Surf Scoter was almost certainly the same as seen a month ago but I was unable to pick out the American White-winged Scoter also seen a month ago. Other good birds were King Eider, Great Northern Diver and Red-necked Grebe. Here are the two eBird checklists I made:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S372593345

https://ebird.org/checklist/S372599446

Up on the mountains the forecast cloudless skies were not evident and I had to wait patiently for the sun to come. I spent some time looking at the many alpine/arctic flowers that the area is famous for but my knowledge of plants is poor so I am reliant on taking photos and using AI to help me although I see there are often very similar species and often feel I can’t trust the answer I get well enough to register my sightings.

I am on firmer ground when it comes to butterfly ID and when the sun did shine then the butterflies flew. I had a period of around an hour when there were many individuals which would stop on flowers but as the morning drew on there were fewer to see and then they would often just zoom by.

Two of the special species of the area are Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow and Northern Clouded Yellow and I had many sightings with Northern being far commoner. I have always found these a challenge to photograph but this time did fairly well although the first mentioned remains difficult. I also got film of both species which allowed me to capture the upperwings which you otherwise never see. A couple of Moorland Clouded Yellows were also present (as I had noted last year) and the presence of all three species at the same site must be unique.

Norse Grayling, which was my first record here, and Alpine Grizzled Skipper were also special species. Fritillaries were very scarce and I had just three individuals of three species (Pearl-bordered, Small Pearl-bordered and Mountain) but nothing rarer.

The pictures are in no particular order

Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge) with a Scotch Burnett (fjelblodråpesvermer)

A video grab showing the uppering of a male Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge)

And Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow (polargulvinge)

Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge)

An as usual out of focus picture of Pale Arctic CY

I did get to see it nectaring well if briefly

Norse Grayling (nornens ringvinge)

Alpine Grizzled Skipper (polarsmyger)

A fuzzy but rare shot of the upperwing of Norse Grayling

Another Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow. They are particularly green when seen like this

Northern CY

This moth would appear to be a rare Enthepria polata (polarbergmåler)

Looking west at 0840 when the sun came through

amongst the flower were these scarce Arnica angustifiola alpina  (fjellsolblom)

And these already flowered Diapensia lapponica (fjellpryd)

Røvika at 0615

Selfie with a Northern Clouded Yellow. This was the first butterfly I saw which started to fly just before a big cloud covered the sun causing it to land again allowing close study

Looking south towards Junkerdalen at 1250 when I left

It was a joy to find two families of Curlews (storspove) close to the cabin with males keeping their eyes on broods of 2 and 3 nearly fully grown young.

Goodbye to the Arctic

The holiday is coming to an end. We are now driving the 1200km (or more if we take the scenic route) back to Oslo.

The last week has seen me have additional visits to both Graddis and Sulis.

Sulis has resulted in the same species as before and even more Northern Clouded Yellows with them being the commonest butterfly but my hopes of getting better photos of both them and the Pale Arctic Clouded Yellows were dashed by the fact that they hardly ever landed and if they did land close to me it was all too short and my camera handling skills were lacking (the autofocus is broken so I am doing everything manually..).

I visited Graddis 9 days after my very successful visit and it was almost like I was visiting another locality. Two weeks of blazing sun and long, hot days had clearly been too much for the northern species and I saw none of the 4 goodies I had seen previously. I may have seen an Arctic Ringlet (disaringvinge) but it never stopped flying and my one photo is very unconclusive. Idas Blues were now very common though and this had been absent just 9 days before. One big surprise was finding a Large Heath (myrgulvinge) which is the first ever record for Nordland county. Most of northern Norway has ever been visited by anyone with any interest in butterflies so there are surely lots of surprises out there waiting to be found but Graddis has been visited often enough and Large Heath is an obvious species so I feel sure this was a vagrant wanderer.

I also added a new species of dragonfly to my list with Alpine Emerald (fjellmetallibelle) proving to be fairly easy to find at both Sulis and especially Graddis where surprisingly it has not been recorded before which does perhaps show that even here there is definitely more to be found.

Bird wise there has been little of interest with just a few waders including my first juvenile Ruff and Spotted Redshank of the «autumn» and my first ever Treeceeper at the cabin.

A female Alpine Emerald (fjellmetallibelle) that was laying eggs

Male Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge)

Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge) on a Fragrant Orchid (brudespor)

Dewy Ringlet (Fjellringvinge)

The first Large Heath (myrringvinge) recorded in Nordland county

Also my best ever photo of the species I think

Was this an Arctic Ringlet (disaringvinge) or just an Arran Brown (fløyelsringvinge)?

Another Alpine Emerald

Blåmannsisen Glacier from close to the cabin

A male Bluethroat (blåstrupe) with food for young that were already out of the nest

Site for Alpine Emerald and also Azure Hawker (fjellibelle)

Male Northern Clouded Yellows (mjeltgulvinge)

And here a female

Another missed photo

And here a missed photo of a Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow (polargulvinge)

And again…. But there will always be another year and hopefully another camera lens

Blessed by the Butterfly Gods

Before I post on the, so far, rather limited birding that Bodø and Nordland has had to offer I will first try to enthral you with a butterfly post. 

I don’t think I will be able to convey quite how exciting the last three days have been but I finally hit jackpot with the northern butterflies that I have always wanted to see. I had some success in 2022 when we were last here but there has always been one species I have dreamt of seeing and which has eluded me. Lapland Fritillary (iduns rutevinge) has a southern outpost at Graddis which is south of Bodø but still north of the Arctic Circle. It is a species that has a two year cycle and sightings at Graddis seem to only be in odd numbered years. I did try in 2019 but failed in my quest even though others had seen the species that year. As I set off early on Sunday I could see that the weather would at least not be a reason for failure as it was very hot and sunny. It was an hour and 40 minute drive and I was full of anticipation. I am not the only person to previously visit Graddis and come away disappointed but I knew that in 2023 people had been successful and I just felt that now it was my turn.

There were far fewer butterflies flying than on 2019 visit but this time it was the definition of quality over quantity. Lapland Fritillary was pretty much the first butterfly I saw although it took a while to get photos. Once I did find a settled individual I was able to fill my boots and then start noticing other species, and boy were them some good ones. Arctic/Glandon Blue (polar blåvinge) was a species I didn’t realistically expect to find but I did🥳 and I knew Freija Fritillary (frøyas perlemorvinge) was more realistic and with only a handfull of fritillaries flying I was soon able to find a couple of Freija alongside Small Pearl-bordered (brunflekket) and Cranberry (myr). So that was three new species in about 10 minutes and all within a radius of around 20 metres!!!! There were also Norse Graylings (nornens ringvinge) which I have seen once previously. There is still one species I need that has historically been recorded in the area - Arctic Ringlet (disas ringvinge) - but there are no recent records I know of so it may have vanished from the area. It is good to have a reason to visit the area again though.

Yesterday, I persuaded Jr to come for a walk with me and The Beast to Sulis which is where I had 2 successful 2022 outings. My sell in to Jr was that we would escape the 29C heat forecast at the cabin but it was hardly any cooler there despite being being at around 900m altitude except for when we found snow which was still plentiful. The alpine meadows here are fantastic but butterflies were very scarce. I did find 2 Alpine Grizzled Skippers (polar smyger) and one Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge) and some fast flying white butterflies were probably Pale Arctic Clouded Yellows (polar gulvinge) but there were also surprisingly Green-veined White (rappringvinge) up there so I could not be sure.

I decided for a return trip this morning on my own and early enough that hopefully any clouded yellows of any species were not just flying past as great speed. Even though I was there by 0845 there was not much landing going on! It was not easy working out what I was seeing except for the orange coloured Northern Clouded Yellows. The first couple of white butterflies were probably Green-veined Whites and then there was a clouded yellow but it tuned out to be a female Moorland but finally I managed a blurry photo of a Pale Arctic. It felt quite made to have all three of the Norwegian clouded yellows species in exactly the same area.

Celebrating afterwards with an ice cream down in the valley I saw that the waste ground next to the shop car park was alive with butterflies and had 6 species of blues and my first Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge) of the year - I seem to have really fallen in favour with the Butterfly Gods right now😊 (although I suspect that this will be noted by the Birds Gods who will frown on me for the rest of the summer…).

Graddis (Junkerdalen) first:

Arctic Blue and Freija Fritillary habitat

And Lapland Fritillary and Norse Grayling habitat

Vanilla-scented Bog Orchid (fjellhvitkurle)

Lapland Fritillary (iduns rutevinge)

Arctic/Glandon Blue (polarblåvinge)

Freija Fritillary (frøyas perlemorvinge)

Well camouflaged

Norse Grayling (nornens ringvinge)

Moorland Clouded Yellows (myrgulvinge)

And Sulis (Sulitjelma)

View looking west with Sulitjelma in the valley

We had to traverse quite steep and hard snow

alpine meadow

Northern Clouded Yellow (mjeltgulvinge)

Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow (polargulvinge)

Taking pictures as they flew past was a real struggle but some were
Good enough for ID

D

and a different more poorly marked individual (a female) but still identifiable

And a Moorland Clouded Yellow (myrgulvinge) fly past in exactly the same spot as I saw and photographed the two rarer species

And another white butterfly fly past which looks to be a Green-veined White (rapssommerfugl) despite its way of flying making me think it was a Pale Arctic Clouded Yellow

And here some slightly better and more identifiable pictures of a Green-veined White. They are of a northern from which is darker than those in the south

Alpine Grizzled Skipper (polarsmyger), an egg laying female

And butterflies from the shop car park

A better shot of a Green-veined White

And the underside of a Purple-edged Copper (purpurgullvinge)